As it turns out, he only operated out of two shops of his own, though he also worked for a nearby dealership. The latter of those two shops has become a sort of institution for Southern California hot rodders and other gearheads: the MoonEyes USA headquarters at 10820 S. Norwalk Boulevard in Santa Fe Springs, California. The location still stands and still houses MoonEyes USA today, and you can even see the famous logo painted in their driveway in satellite photos.

The dealership – Urich-Gibbs Lincoln-Mercury, was where Moon worked for a while after World War II until shortly after he returned from the Korean War. I found an address for it at 101 E. Whittier Boulevard in Whittier, California. It appears Whittier Boulevard has since been renumbered, so it’s now hard to tell where Urich-Gibbs was located.

Moon’s first shop, which he operated from his youth until the late 1950s, had a much more humble aspect. He ran it out of the garage behind his father’s diner, a building that, according to Fetherston, Pop Moon bought and already housed Tessie’s Cafe. Pop changed the name to Moon Cafe, and eventually started a 1/5-mile go-kart track, called Moonza, on the property (apparently featured in the September 1959 issue of Hot Rod magazine). Fetherston wrote:

However, there were forces at play which were out of Dean’s control and which became an important part in shaping his future. The lease on Pop Moon’s eleven acres wasn’t firm and a new corporation bought the property with plans to turn it into a tank farm.

So where was the Moon Cafe? Fetherston included several photos of Dean’s cars in front of the cafe, but an address came from the image of a water decal that Fetherston included: 10935 South Bloomfield Avenue, Norwalk, California. Looking at that location today, we can see that a tank farm remains on that property. We can also see that it’s no more than a block away from the current MoonEyes USA location. If anybody has any more photos of the Moon Cafe and Dean Moon’s first garage, let us know!

UPDATE (5.August 2009): Geoff Hacker reminded me of a bunch of photos that he obtained of the Cheetah Transporter at Moon Equipment during the time Dean Moon owned it. I inserted a few of the photos in the gallery above in roughly chronological order. Thanks, Geoff!

2 Responses to “The humble beginnings of MoonEyes USA”

I was wondering were Dean Moon, JR is? We were good friends in high school (Califonia High School, Whittier, Ca.) but lost touch with him when I moved to Colorado. I would love to here from him and how he’s doing?

I would really appreciate it if you could forward this message to him if possible.

I went to Monte Vista High with Dean and after they closed MV I went to LSHS and he went to Cal High. I would be interested in finding him. We took Automotive Shop together and I thought he could teach the class.